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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28493835">better days</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullsundial/pseuds/fullsundial'>fullsundial</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>EXO (Band), NCT (Band), SHINee, SuperM (Korea Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Skating, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, aka the figure skating au that i wanted so i wrote it, baekyong, figure skating, figure skating competitions, i love these boys too much, lots of pain bc i hate myself</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:07:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,887</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28493835</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullsundial/pseuds/fullsundial</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The boy crashes dramatically into the side board in front of Taeyong, arms dangling over the edge and laughing freely.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>  <em>When his laughter fades, bright smile still pasted on his face, the boy clears his throat and levels his eyes with Taeyong’s. “You were staring at me,” the boy says matter-of-factly, leaning against the board and knitting his gloved fingers together.</em></p><p> </p><p>In which the most important part of Taeyong's life has been snatched away from him, and he has no idea how to go on. Until a boy's bright smile helps him realize that perhaps there is still something left for him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Byun Baekhyun/Lee Taeyong</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>better days</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/poutyongs/gifts">poutyongs</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy New Year everyone!!! I hope 2021 is kinder to us all, and that this story brightens your day even a little &lt;3 </p><p>baekyong is extremely precious to me and I've always wanted to read a figure skating fic so I decided to write one myself! I used to skate but it's been a while so I'm sorry if any of the terms or situations are off LOL</p><p>Enjoy!! :D</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Taeyong stares hard at the ice. After a few moments, its brightness begins to sting his eyes. But he can’t look away. For a reason he can’t explain, the sting feels good. The glassy surface is beaming and brilliant, like the forehead of an athlete after a long session of training. It has just been smoothed over by the Zamboni, exaggerating the ice’s reflection of the long fluorescent lights anchored to the ceiling. This was always his favourite time to get on the ice, when it is smooth and shiny and unmarked. Pure.</p><p>He glances at the large clock at the far end of the rink. It is 6:00 pm. The senior session is starting. Skaters of varying ages and heights file through the doors, chatting and giggling and stretching and bouncing and <em> living </em>. They are all eager to get on the ice. Taeyong can almost feel the anticipation in the air, radiating off the skaters like heat. He watches them shamelessly as they brush by him, all of them edging around him carefully, fearfully, as if he might reach out and grab them by the wrists. As if they might catch some contagious disease. Taeyong spots Mark, loping through the door unsteadily, laughing loudly at a joke that Taeyong did not hear. Mark meets Taeyong’s eyes with his own, offering him a wide smile and patting him on the back as he passes. Taeyong opens his mouth, hopeful for a snippet of conversation or bite of gossip, but is granted neither. Mark is already on the ice, gliding away with his arms outstretched. Taeyong clutches at the knit blanket draped over his legs, a pathetic shield. </p><p>Every nerve of his body thrums with the painful awareness that he’s partially blocking the entrance to the ice, but he doesn't feel particularly inclined to move. Skaters continue to squeeze by him, gingerly, some furrowing their brows in confusion, others with irritation. Studiously avoiding eye contact. Tears made of acid tickle the back of his eyelids and make his throat burn. Something bloated and full of pressure expands in his chest, threatening to burst and crack his ribcage. He wants to punch a wall. </p><p><em> I will not cry. I will not cry</em>. <em> I will not cry. </em></p><p>The skaters gather in a large group at one end of the ice to begin their 15 minutes of guided warm-up, the first thing they always do before splitting off into private lessons or individual practice. This is the part of the session when adrenaline levels are at their peak. The radio’s top hits pump out of the speakers, keeping in time to the beat of the skaters’ strokes. Arms stretch toward the ceiling in unison, laughter echoes throughout the high-ceilinged rink, and blades etch their first markings into the ice, shards of shaved ice flying into the air like falling snow. The ice only ever stays shining and spotless for a few moments. Rays of energy radiate off the skaters, so dense that Taeyong almost thinks he can see them. As the hour-long practice session goes on, muscles will begin to tire and frustration will begin to reach boiling points. But for now, at this moment, the ice rink is a realm of possibility. It is an escape after a long day of being cooped up in the cage of ordinary life. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter who broke up with who. The huge assignment you have to turn in tomorrow that you haven’t started working on. The fighting between your parents, held in the basement and in hushed voices in a noble effort to protect your ears, though what they’ll never know is that you can still hear them clearly, perched on the staircase and listening closely into the early hours of the morning. You really ought to make an appointment with your guidance counsellor, and soon. Why didn’t your friend reply to your text when you know she’s been active on social media?</p><p>All of the white noise of daily life, erased. Finally, you can breathe.</p><p>But in this moment, unfairly, heart-achingly, Taeyong feel more suffocated than ever.</p><p>Sitting frozen and staring at a boy struggling in the restraints of the jump harness, Taeyong’s mind is pulled back in time to a year ago. It’s amazing how much a life can change in the span of one year, isn’t it? At this time of the month, exactly one year ago, Taeyong was preparing for his solo performance. Tchaikovsky. Black velvet suit studded with tiny Swarovski crystals. New skates, the expensive kind embedded with memory foam that molds to the shape of your feet. It was for the First Snow Competition, one of the most competitive competitions in the country. He suddenly remembers that there was one jump in his choreography that he was never able to land. The double lutz. With time, he thought, he’d get it. No problem. Practice makes perfect, right? But he’d practiced it for hours on end, yet could still never get it right. By the time the competition rolled around, he still hadn’t nailed it. He begged his coach, Ten, to let him pull it from the choreography, but Ten refused. He wouldn’t hear it.</p><p><em> It’s better to try and fail </em> , he chided Taeyong, <em> than not to try at all </em>. </p><p>When met with Ten’s adamant refusal, Taeyong recalls feeling like his veins had been pumped full of something poisonous. He felt betrayed. Sabotaged. Why on Earth risk the chance of embarrassment, when he had so many other skills that he could showcase confidently? Why ruin his otherwise beautiful performance with a fuck-up? It didn’t make any sense. </p><p>The day of the competition finally arrived. </p><p>Taeyong didn't land the jump. </p><p>He remembers the aftermath clearly, and even a year later, the memory still tears at his heart. He remembers that he couldn't stop crying. He hadn’t even scored poorly, but he just couldn’t seem to stop. Only it wasn’t even crying, exactly. It was more like wailing, like a dam had broken in his chest and was overflowing through the only available opening, out of his throat. He was inconsolable, delirious with upset. Ten had touched him on the shoulder, preparing to deliver some word of encouragement, or more likely just to tell him to pull himself together, and Taeyong had collapsed into a heap on the wet training room floor. Wanting so desperately to slap Ten across the face, but feeling too overcome with hatred and anger to even get to his feet and look Ten in the eyes. Knowing he would never dare do that anyway, which somehow made him even more filled with despair. </p><p>It’s laughable now, his immaturity. He would give anything to go back to that day, even if it meant falling on every single jump and spin in his solo or forgetting the entire choreography halfway through. Back then, falling on that jump felt like the end of his life. Clearly, he hadn’t understood what it truly meant for something to come to an end. Now, he thinks he might. </p><p>Sometimes it's hard for him to believe he'd skated for 11 years. 11 fucking years. All those hours. All that practice. All that money. Hours and hours and hours of sweat, blood, and tears, both of pain and of joy. And for what? Thinking about his progress over the course of those long years makes him feel like crying. Thinking about all his parents’ hard-earned money that had been put towards his private lessons, his dance partners, his skates, his competition fees, his membership, makes him want to rip his hair out and scream at the sky.</p><p>But his parents have been wonderful, of course they’ve been. Nothing but support. But sometimes, while he was still living with them, he would watch as they caught each other’s eye across the dinner table. The smallest snag of eye contact, held only for the briefest moment, but something still passed between them. A thought never to be voiced out loud.</p><p>
  <em> What might’ve happened if…? If…? </em>
</p><p>If, if, if.</p><p>But Taeyong knows that they just want the best for him like they always have, that they still want to protect him in any way they can, even as his confidence lies in shards on the ground. He’s not surprised – they’ve always been hopeful people. He’d once been like that, too. And perhaps they still believe that there’s hope, that they might be able to gather all the pieces of Taeyong and glue them back together. But Taeyong knows better, knows that these are not large pieces with clean breaks. Some are thinner than a strand of hair, lighter than air. Some are already lost.</p><p>His parents don't know why he keeps coming to the rink to watch.</p><p>"Isn't it like torture?" his mother asks. </p><p>It hurts Taeyong to admit that she's right. It is absolutely torture. But he has to keep coming to watch, so at least, somehow, he can still be a part of the ice. If he doesn’t even come under the pretense of watching, observing, there is no reason for him to come at all. Skating diligently for 11 years gave him nothing. The most he can do is be a ghost, haunting the place he once used to own, feeling fireworks of jealously explode in his chest. But feeling jealous is better than feeling nothing at all.</p><p>Taeyong continues to watch the skaters glide and jump and spin. Shoot-the-ducks and spirals. Camel spins and split jumps. Twisting this way and that. Jumping through the air. Spinning so fast that all he can see is a streak of black, all distinguishing features completely blurred out of existence. They are so graceful. He always thought skating was like flying, in a way. What other sport exists where you have to be totally and completely in control of every movement and muscle and flutter of your body? Where you are able to completely defy gravity, even for a moment? He suddenly feels very heavy, like lead.</p><p>A few of the skaters send glances his way. His old friends with concern, the skaters he never knew very well with curiosity. But he thinks the ones who looks at him with pity are the worst. He wants to scream at them, at the top of his lungs. </p><p>
  <em> I used to be like you! I was better than you! Your talent has nothing on mine! </em>
</p><p>As the movement of skaters blurs before his eyes, his mind wanders to a homeless woman he used to pass by every day on his walk to school. </p><p><em> No job with 3 children to support; tired and hungry </em>, her sign read. </p><p>Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t think he ever gave her any money. Not once in those many years. He felt sorry for her, of course, but he never really thought much about how she felt. How could he? They had absolutely nothing in common. More importantly, he was certain that he would never end up like her. He had never been more certain about anything in his life. He makes eye contact with a young skater, barely 10, who is peering at him with a twisted mix of awe and sympathy. He immediately looks away. Taeyong is sure that the young skater is certain that he will never end up like him. </p><p>Looking away, he spots a small girl in the corner, trying to land her axel. She has stick-thin, knobby legs, accentuated by tight black leggings. She's struggling. Her jump is high, but there is no rotation. The reason she can't land it is that she's not using her arms, which flop limply at her sides. He wishes he could help her. He wishes he could skate. </p><p><em> I wish, I wish, I wish </em>.</p><p>His eyes drag sideways to find his coach. He tries to catch his eye, then realizing that Ten is occupied by watching a boy impassively, eyebrows knitted together in a frown and arms crossed in front of his chest. </p><p>The boy is new. An elite club like this one rarely gets new skaters. Suddenly, Taeyong’s interest is snagged. He begins to lean forward, then winces and shuts his eyes tight. Every single day. He wonders how long it takes to get used to something you never once imagined would happen to you. A month? A year? Never?</p><p>Opening his eyes again, his eyes latch on to the new skater. He isn’t very tall, but he is lithe and lean and flexible. Even from a distance, Taeyong can tell that he’s covered in lean muscle. There’s no doubt that he’s talented. Not as talented as Taeyong once was, but talented.</p><p>The boy executes an axle, that to an ordinary person would look flawless. But Taeyong’s seasoned eyes pick out the slight hesitation before the jump, as if an invisible string is holding the boy back. He’s small and quick enough to complete the full rotation before landing gracefully, but there isn’t much height. There is a fear hidden in his jump, a faltering. </p><p>Taeyong knows that Ten will see this too, and that he will not be impressed. And just as he predicted, right before his eyes, Ten waves the boy over and says something to him with obvious irritation. </p><p>After years of training with Ten, Taeyong can read the underlying meaning behind his every movement and gesture. When he’s disappointed, he folds his arms tightly across his chest and chews the inside of cheek, eyes narrowed in disapproval. This expression always made Taeyong want to slap him right across the face. He never did, of course. </p><p>Taeyong can tell immediately that the new boy is different from him. When Ten rolls his eyes up to the ceiling in frustration and doles out what must be more criticism, the boy puts his hands on his waist. He laughs, but it is not a good-natured laugh. It is full of spite. He leans towards Ten, spits out some line that Taeyong wishes he could make out. Then, he tilts his chin up in defiance, as if daring Ten to say something back. When Ten just continues to stare at him, heat boiling behind his eyes, the boy whips around and speeds away, skating straight towards Taeyong. His arms stretch out comically, as if he’s preparing to take flight, and their eyes lock.</p><p>The boy crashes dramatically into the side board in front of Taeyong, arms dangling over the edge and laughing freely. His dark hair has been mussed from practice, sweat making it curl up around the nape of his neck and around his ears – ears that are endearingly large, Taeyong cannot help but notice.</p><p>When his laughter fades, bright smile still pasted on his face, the boy clears his throat and levels his eyes with Taeyong’s. “You were staring at me,” the boy says matter-of-factly, leaning against the board and knitting his gloved fingers together.</p><p>Old Taeyong would have immediately clutched his hands to his neck in an effort to hide the blood-red blush that would inevitably creep up to cover his cheeks, sputtering out an excuse and quite literally running away. But new Taeyong didn’t get embarrassed easily, not anymore. The hurt and frustration and exhaustion didn’t leave any room for shyness and shame. There was only so much space. </p><p>New Taeyong doesn’t say anything in return. Instead, new Taeyong continues to stare. </p><p>Taeyong had a pet corgi once, Mongie. His best friend throughout the entirety of his childhood. The boy’s eyes remind him of Mongie’s, soft and open and trusting, but cut with a playful edge. It makes Taeyong want to cry, like most things do these days, but for some reason he can’t seem to look away.</p><p>The boy stares back, wordlessly. </p><p>After what seems like a year, Taeyong heaves a small sigh. He hates small talk. But what can be done? </p><p>He decides not to respond to the boy’s comment, instead introducing himself simply.</p><p>“I’m Taeyong. You new?”</p><p>“Baekhyun,” the boy returns, his face instantly breaking out into a beam. “And yeah, but I’m already regretting transferring here. My coach wants to kill me. Or rather, I want to kill my coach. I think that’s probably more accurate.”</p><p>Taeyong at once admires and resents the easy way Baekhyun opens up to him, the light behind his eyes. Full of laughter. </p><p>“You’re being stupid,” Taeyong responds calmly. “He’s harsh, but he’s the best. You have to stop fighting him or else you’re never gonna get anywhere.”</p><p>Taeyong hesitates, then adds, “He might drop you, you know, if you give him too much trouble. He’s done it before. It doesn’t matter how good you are.”</p><p>Baekhyun’s eyes immediately flick up to meet Taeyong’s, and Taeyong is surprised by the fire in them. But it’s not a destructive kind of fire. </p><p>“You think I’m good?” Baekhyun asks, eyebrows raised playfully and something Taeyong doesn’t trust lighting up behind his eyes.</p><p>Taeyong rolls his eyes, choosing again not to respond.</p><p>Baekhyun lowers his eyebrows, gaze suddenly turning serious.</p><p>“You’re a skater?”</p><p>Taeyong scoffs, hoping his expression will distract from the way he has recoiled, slightly, as if in response to a punch to the gut. This still happens, no matter how many times he’s heard variations of this question. </p><p>Though he notes with interest and slight surprise that Baekhyun doesn’t say “you were”. And that the question is asked with simple curiosity, not condescension. Particulars of wording and intonation that old Taeyong would have paid no notice to, but that new Taeyong is finely attuned to, like a security camera swivelling to follow a suspect.</p><p>“What, you think I’m here to bask in the glory of all you Olympic-level skaters?” Taeyong sneers. “Get over yourself.”</p><p>Baekhyun looks half stunned, half stung. </p><p>Taeyong bites his lip. He’s aware that he’s being a jerk. He’s aware that his desire to protect what little dignity he has left often causes him to be nasty and bitter. As if because of who he is, because of his circumstances, he has a right to step on those around him in a meagre attempt to gain even the smallest bit of leverage. He knows that it’s wrong, that he’s lost a part of himself that used to draw people towards him rather than driving them away. But it is so difficult to tell who is being curious and who is being mocking. He’s discovered that the line between the two is very faint. </p><p>“Sorry,” he offers meekly. “But yeah, I’m a skater. For 11 years. Ten was my coach. Is my coach.” </p><p>His eyes never leave Baekhyun’s. </p><p>“Oh,” Baekhyun responds simply, nodding. There is a question in his eyes, but he doesn’t act upon it. “Give me some advice? He’s breaking me down. I don’t think he’s said a single positive thing since we started training. Like, I know I’m not an Olympian,” and at the word Olympian, the corners of his mouth turn up in a small smile, “but I’m not <em> that </em> bad.”</p><p>Taeyong tilts his head to the side, slightly. Thinking.</p><p>“Well,” he begins. “The first thing you need to do is stop fighting him. Ten likes to fight. And he’ll be more vicious if you fight back. Just, try to filter him out. Like white noise. Process the actual constructive criticism, but dump the rest.”</p><p>Taeyong thinks fondly back to the time when he and Mark had both been trainees under Ten. But Mark, soft, tender-hearted Mark, couldn’t take Ten’s harsh criticism. Every negative comment was like a blade that he personally twisted into his own soul, leading to endless late nights, crying in the training room and wrapping tensor bandages around ankles red and sore and blistered from over-practicing. Like Taeyong’s failed lutz jump, Mark had felt like this conflict between him and Ten might lead to the end of his career, the end of everything. Of course, everything ended up fine. Mark had switched his coach to Kai, whose joking and easygoing nature suited Mark much better. Flicking his eyes to Mark now, practicing a tricky bit of footwork at the side of the rink while Kai looked on with a faint smile on his face, Taeyong realizes that Mark had made the right choice. That it really hadn’t been anthing to cry about.</p><p>How dramatic they had been. Funny.</p><p>Shaking his head slightly, amused, Taeyong drags his eyes back to Baekhun, who is nodding slowly, pretty bow lips pursed in thought. </p><p>“Okay,” Baekhyun says. “That makes sense, thanks. But, he says I need to go back to training with the jumping harness. Like, come on. I haven’t used the harness since I was in <em> preliminary </em>.”</p><p>“I agree with him,” Taeyong responds evenly, and as Baekhyun’s mouth opens to protest, he adds, “Your technique is great, and you’re flexible, and you're small, which is lucky, but you don’t have much power. It’s why you keep falling on all your doubles. You’re afraid you might fall, right?”</p><p>Baekhyun shuts his open mouth, then opens it again. </p><p>“Obviously,” he mutters dejectedly. But then his eyes brighten with a twisted sort of excitement. “But honestly, isn’t everyone? Like, come on. Have you <em> seen </em> the kinds of injuries skaters get at our level? You must know. Oh my god, at my old club, there was this girl. I forget her name. But she fucked up her leg so badly she was never–”</p><p>Baekhyun sees the stricken expression on Taeyong’s face and stops suddenly, mid-sentence.</p><p>All of a sudden, it is all too much. The fluorescent lights. The whirring fan. The pumping of skaters legs. The headbands pushing sweaty bangs out of faces. The cheeks made flushed by the combination of cold air and exertion. The exclamations of excitement, pumped full of adrenaline. The ice, glowing shades of white and blue under the lights.</p><p>Taeyong looks down at his lap.</p><p>Then he looks up, meeting Baekhyun’s eyes, which are filled with confusion and concern. </p><p><em> I miss Mongie </em>, Taeyong thinks absentmindedly, miserably.</p><p>He gives Baekhyun a small, wounded smile, wanting to open his mouth, wanting to explain, but he can’t, he can’t.</p><p><em> I’m sorry </em> , he tries to say through his eyes. <em> I can’t </em>.</p><p>Then he grabs the wheels of his wheelchair and pushes himself around and away from the rink.</p><p>He doesn’t look back, doesn’t want to see the expression on Baekhyun’s face, doesn’t want to offer explanations and nod along to expressions of pity and sorrow. Doesn’t want to listen to comments of <em> I’m so sorry, What happened?, Are you okay? </em> , and provide words of reassurance as if every fibre of his being is not strung with panic, all the time. It is even worse when he knows that behind these pretty sympathetic words lie the real thoughts: <em> Shit, I’m so glad that’s not me </em>.</p><p>So he pushes himself forward, forward, eyes fixed on the door to the parking lot outside, where Taemin must be waiting for him.</p><p>Then something cuts through the white noise filling his ears and makes his head reel.</p><p>“Will you be back tomorrow?” Baekhyun calls out, his voice bright as always, filled with something alive.</p><p>Something small and warm blooms in the centre of Taeyong’s chest.</p><p>He stops. He opens his mouth to respond. Because he thinks, this time, he might be able to.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading :') you are all beautiful and amazing!!!<br/>find me on twitter @ baekfiix :~)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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